Meanwhile the lord of the manor had stepped into the room where the women of the neighborhood were investing the bride with the white head band, the insignia of her new position.  The young girl was crying bitterly, partly because custom so decreed, partly from honest nervousness.  She was to manage a run-down household, under the eye of a peevish old man, whom, moreover, she was expected to love.  He stood beside her, by no means like the groom in the Song of Solomon who “steps into the chamber like the morning sun.”  “You’ve cried enough now,” he said crossly; “remember, it isn’t you who are making me happy; I am making you happy!” She looked up to him humbly and seemed to feel that he was right.  The business was ended; the young wife had drunk to her husband’s health, some young wags had looked through the tripod to see if the bride’s head band was straight, and they were all crowding again toward the dancing-floor, whence there still resounded inextinguishable laughter and noise.  Frederick was no longer there.  He had met with a great unbearable disgrace, when Aaron the Jew, a butcher and casual second-hand dealer from the nearest town, had suddenly appeared, and, after a short unsatisfactory conversation, had dunned him before the whole company for the sum of ten thalers in payment of a watch delivered at Eastertide.  Frederick had gone away, as if annihilated, and the Jew followed him, shouting all the while:  “Oh, woe is me!  Why didn’t I listen to sensible people!  Didn’t they tell me a hundred times you had all your possessions on your back and no bread in your cupboard!” The room shook with laughter.  Some had pushed after them into the yard.  “Catch the Jew!  Balance him against a pig!” called some; others had become serious.  “Frederick looked as white as a sheet,” said an old woman, and the crowd separated as the carriage of the lord of the estate turned into the yard.  Herr von S. was out of sorts on the way home, the usual and inevitable effect when the desire to maintain popularity induced him to attend such feasts.  He looked out of the carriage silently.  “What two figures are those?” He pointed to two dark forms running ahead of the wagon like two ostriches.  Now they sneaked into the castle.  “Another blessed pair of swine out of our own pen!” sighed Herr von S. Having arrived at home, he found the corridor crowded with all the domestics standing around two lower-servants, who had sunk down pale and breathless on the steps.

They declared that they had been chased by old Mergel’s ghost, when they were coming home through the forest of Brede.  First they had heard a rustling and crackling high above them, and then, up in the air, a rattling noise like sticks beating against one another; then suddenly had sounded a shrieking yell and quite distinctly the words, “O, my poor soul!” coming down from on high.  One of them even claimed to have seen fiery eyes gleaming through the branches, and both had run as fast as their legs could carry them.